Performance as Research

The Performance as Research Working Group explores issues related to performance as a mode of inquiry and is engaged in investigating methodologies where performance or creative practice is used as a central part of the research process.

KEYWORDS

• artistic research
• languages and pedagogies of performance
• practice as research
• transdisciplinary performance ecologies

WG email address:

performanceasresearch@gmail.com

Names of convenors:

Göze Saner and Mark Tatlow 

2025 Cologne PaR WG CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Since its inception in 2004, the Performance-as-Research Working Group has positioned performance practice as a powerful, alternative methodology for conducting research, continuously provoking discussions around the different epistemic modalities facilitated by, in and through performance. The 2025 conference’s theme, Performing Carnival, speaks directly to the working group’s emphasis on the lived, co-created sense of performance, as a form of inquiry and as a unique cultural practice, while at the same time challenging the ethics and politics of who takes part, how, and what happens, during and afterwards. We ask:

• How might PaR (re)define carnival and the carnivalesque and identify which practices sit comfortably within this nomenclature and which resist it, with reference to/through postcolonial and posthumanist approaches and alongside Global South epistemologies? What possible insights can PaR facilitate about the three key sub-themes that have been highlighted on the CFP: ekstasis, subversion and metamorphosis? How does PaR engage with displacement, revolution and transformation? 

• How might PaR use ‘carnival’ theoretically and methodologically to articulate its relationship to other established modes of research? Echoing the CFP’s questions regarding the politics of carnival: Does PaR fundamentally challenge and transform academic research paradigms within the fields of theatre and performance or does it serve as a release mechanism to maintain the status quo? 

• At recent annual conferences, the working group has considered the ecology of PaR and experimented with it being a marketplace, a coral reef, a public street, a playground, a habitat where distinct research projects interact and transform as a consequence, acknowledging the interdependence of PaR. How might carnival be articulated as an ecology? Anthropomorphised and tame like Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, or hybrid and activist like the Procession for Palestine that took place in New Orleans in February 2024?

• How does the upside-down world of the mediaeval carnival relate to more complex carnivalesque subversion of today’s dichotomies and unexpected invitations to third ways of being in the world? Can the carnivalesque be detected in the other-than-human world’s way of disrupting human certainties (climate change, for example) and pointing to these new ways of living? Does walking along margins or towards borders lead to thresholds where the carnivalesque is a harbinger of what could be to come? 

The PaR Working Group welcomes those working in multiple and mixed performance practices including dance, theatre, performance art, live art, music and socially engaged arts, as well as other types of cultural performances and performative practices. We invite returning members and potential newcomers to consider their own PaR in relation to the questions above. We are also eager to hear from those whose PaR responds to the conference theme in ways perhaps not considered within our WG CFP but nevertheless align with the WG’s concerns.

The PaR Working Group functions as a ‘participatory laboratory’ where members collaborate and interweave aspects of their individual practice/research in sub-groups. There will be four (or possibly five) subgroups, each of which will be responsible for one 90-minute WG session. The composition of the subgroups will be announced in the Spring, as soon as presenters’ participation is confirmed. 

Presenters will be invited to share preparatory materials with members of their subgroup in advance of the conference. Materials can be in the form of academic papers, PowerPoint presentations, participatory workshop plans, audio-visual or filmographic documentation of practice, manifestos etc. Each subgroup will then be expected to organise a working group session in a format of their choice, ranging from a series of performative presentations to performance conversations, from interactive PaR installations to documented workshops etc. 

SUBMISSION PROCESS

The deadline for submissions is 15 January 2025. All applicants should follow the instructions on the conference website: https://iftr.org/conference/call-for-papers.

Once you have submitted your proposal via the Cambridge University Press website, please send a copy to performanceasresearch@gmail.com; include a 100-word bio and full contact information in this email. Any questions about the working group, the CfP, or the conference itself can be sent to the same address. 

BURSARIES

We encourage all scholars who will be seeking bursaries to apply as early as possible. The deadline to apply for a bursary is 22 November 2024. Here is the link for more information about the bursary application process: https://iftr.org/conference/bursaries. 

NEW PROCEDURE

Those who apply for a bursary will receive notice of acceptance/rejection by 25 December 2024, three weeks in advance of the submission deadline.

Early Bird registration for the conference will be from 14 February to 30 April 2025.

About the WG:

The Working Group was instigated by Baz Kershaw and Jacqueline Martin and had its first official working session in 2006. Since that time, the group continues to expand the network of researchers with each annual meeting, where the sharing of practice and subsequent group critical reflection informs and inspires inventive and generative approaches to articulating and disseminating new knowledge through performance. The term Performance as Research (PaR) covers multiple ways that different cultures, countries and academic contexts frame and name this kind of research. We also ask how PaR can respond to issues of climate change, coloniality, and global injustice.

Group members presenting at the Working Group sessions are researchers, artistic practitioners and theatre scholars from many countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal, Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Turkey, UK, and USA. At each annual conference, we invite new members to the group including young scholars and MA/PhD students. We are open to visitors, but we invite them to participate (as opposed to observe) and to attend all WG sessions if possible.

The WG would like to create opportunities for each member to contribute beyond and outside the conference context, for example through participating in quarterly meetings organised online by convenors, traditionally held at the time of the Equinoxes and Solstices. 

Current projects:

The WG is working towards an edited publication on the theme of Ecology and Performance as Research as part of the Routledge series, Wild Zones.

Completed publications/outputs:

Allegue Fuschini, Ludivine, Jones, Simon, Kershaw, Baz and Angela Piccini, eds. Practice-as-Research in Performance and Screen. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Riley, Shannon Rose, and Lynette Hunter, eds. Mapping Landscapes for Performance as Research: Scholarly Acts and Creative Cartographies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Kershaw, Baz, and Helen Nicholson, eds. Research Methods in Theatre and Performance. Research Methods for the Arts and Humanities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011.

Barton, Bruce, Dreyer-Lude, Melanie and Anna Birch, eds. Experiments and Intensities Vol 3: Mediating Practice(s): Performance as research and – in – through – mediation, Winchester: Winchester University Press, 2013.

Arlander, Annette, Barton, Bruce, Dreyer-Lude, Melanie and Ben Spatz, eds. Performance as Research: Knowledge, Methods, Impact. New York: Routledge, 2018. 

Arlander, Annette, and Manola Gayatri Kumarswamy, ‘Performance as Research in Hyderabad - Proceedings of the Performance as Research Working Group meeting at the IFTR conference in Hyderabad 6-10th July 2015‘, Research Catalogue (2018) https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/204690/279870/0/0 [accessed 05/11/2024]

Taub, Myer, ed. Forests and Fences. WildZones. Abingdon, Oxon New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2024.